Refugee quotas divide EU

(BRUSSELS) - EU plans for binding refugee quotas across the
28-nation bloc could be sunk because Britain, Ireland and Denmark do not
have to accept them, European sources said Tuesday.

The European
Commission, the EU executive, is due to propose quotas as part of a new
migration policy on Wednesday after the worst migrant shipwreck left 750
people dead in the Mediterranean last month.

As the death toll
mounts off its southern shores, the European Union is trying to put in
place a strategy to deal with both the growing number of arriving
refugees and to halt the inflow at source in conflict-torn North Africa
and the Middle East.

The final plan is supposed to be put before
EU leaders at their June 25-26 summit but immigration is such a
sensitive political issue for many member states that agreement could
prove elusive, especially when it comes to sharing the burden.

Commission
spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said on Tuesday that Britain and Ireland
have "opt-in rights" on certain policy areas under EU treaties, meaning
in this case that they had the right to decide whether or not to
participate in a quota system.

"Denmark has an opt-out right whereby they do not participate at all" on this issue, Bertaud added.

In
London, a Home Office spokesperson said that, given the choice, Britain
"will not participate in any legislation imposing a mandatory system of
resettlement or relocation."

Instead, the spokesperson said,
Britain will focus on "stopping the callous criminals who lie behind
this vile trade in human beings" by cooperating more with law
enforcement agencies and working within the countries of origin and
transit as well as returning illegal migrants.

The exemptions
granted to the three countries are making it difficult for the
commission to impose binding quotas on the 25 remaining EU member
states, European sources told AFP.

The issue is so divisive that
after further talks Tuesday, officials still had not fashioned an
agreement before the 28 EU Commissioners were due to meet Wednesday to
formally sign off on the new migration policy, the sources said.

Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker has said he wants the quotas to be
binding, commission sources told AFP, but Britain, among others, has
insisted it will only accept quotas on a voluntary basis.

- 'Others offer nothing' -

"Some
member states have already made a major contribution to global
resettlement efforts," said a draft copy of the proposals seen by AFP.

"But
others offer nothing -- and in many cases they are not making an
alternative contribution in terms of receiving and accepting asylum
requests or helping to fund the efforts of others," the draft added.

Hungary
is one member state that has faced a huge influx of refugees recently,
mainly from Kosovo, but also Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The
European idea that somebody allows refugees into their own country and
then distributes them to other member states is mad and unfair,"
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Friday.

Orban like many of his European partners is facing an opposition upsurge of anti-immigrant populism.

The
UN High Commissioner for Refugees has urged the EU to admit annually a
total of 20,000 Syrians who have taken refuge in neighbouring countries.

But one European source said no figure has so far been offered to the Commissioners.

Until
now, EU states have admitted refugees on a voluntary basis under the
principle that their asylum requests are processed in the country where
they land, not the country they are trying to get to.

Italy,
Greece, Cyprus and Malta have borne the brunt of the recent upsurge in
migrants crossing the Mediterranean and have called on their EU peers to
take up more of the burden.

The EU statistics agency Eurostat
said Tuesday that EU member states granted protection to more than
185,000 asylum seekers last year, an increase of nearly 50 percent over
2013. The figure includes those given refugee status.